Training camp opens on 17 September. The season starts on 2 October against the Rangers. The Detroit Red Wings do not currently have a general manager.
Steve Yzerman stepped down on 15 July and stayed on as a senior adviser. The club engaged a search firm. As of the start of September it had not named a successor, and the reported internal target — to have somebody in place by Labour Day — has come and gone.
The person in the chair cannot do the job
Shawn Horcoff, Yzerman's assistant, is running hockey operations day to day. Reporting on the situation has been consistent on one point: he does not have the authority to make a trade or sign a player.
That is an ordinary arrangement for a fortnight. It is a strange one to carry into a training camp, and a very strange one to carry while the captain is asking to leave.
Dylan Larkin asked out in June and has not moved
Larkin's trade request became public in early June. Five years remain on his eight-year, $69.9 million contract, at $8.7 million against the cap. Detroit has spoken with Florida, Minnesota, Vegas and Dallas. No offer has been judged good enough, and reporting through August had him resolute about wanting out.
He is still expected to report to camp. The reason is not sentiment: a player who fails to report forfeits salary, and in Larkin's case that is roughly $8 million. So the most likely version of the next month is the captain of a team he has asked to leave, skating at that team's camp, while nobody with the authority to trade him has been hired.
The number underneath all of it
Ten seasons without a playoff appearance. That is the longest run in the club's history, and it is the context every part of this sits inside — the departure, the request, the search, and the fact that none of the four teams reportedly contacted has offered enough to change it.
Camp opens in two weeks either way.